Appearing on the Rolling Stones 1971 album Sticky Fingers, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” was one of several hits on the album for the group. In addition to adding to the Stones legacy of memorable hits, it was pronounced #25 in 2004 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time.” It was recorded at Olympic Studios in London and produced by Jimmy Miller.
GUITARS only (Keith Richards, Mick Taylor on lead at end):
Keith recorded with a lot of treble here with what sounds like a treble booster. Just goes to show how much tweaking is done at the board for the final mix. (Same thing was applied to the fuzz tone on satisfaction). All those guitarists out there trying to emulate the sound of the records need to remember that live guitar and amp sounds can be very raw, and learn to live with it. Final solo, definitely Taylor to my ears, sounds like a Les Paul neck pickup going direct to the amp with no effects. Interestingly, Taylor bought Keith’s 1959 Les Paul when he was with John Mayall. Could well be that very guitar here!
Thanks for your sincere reply, studio!
I just took another listen and realized that I forgot to mention the first thing that made me suspect that this wasn’t Mick Taylor playing: the vibrato! Or rather, the lack of it! Mick’s on the original Sticky Fingers track is wider and more expressive.
Whoever played this track is a fine player, but he’s not Mick (who is?).
LIkewise with the “Keith” part at the beginning. Very close, but differences in phrasing are apparent in many places.
These clips certainly capture the flavor of Keith and Mick’s playing, but they are not them.
Having said all that, I really learned a lot more about Keith and Mick’s playing by listing to these clips and comparing them with the original record. As i said before, they shed a lot of light on the originals. There’s value in that, as long as one remembers that these are not the originals!
Editor note: Well we might leave it up for a bit if people are enjoying it but this is not a site that features anything but original artists as opposed to cover versions. We actually thought of adding a category that would feature really good covers by instrumentalists and vocalists. Maybe this should start that category off–do you think it would be interesting or annoying to have a covers section?
I think it would be interesting. We all have a different take on what we hear, and I learned a lot from the clip, even if it wasn’t Keef and Mick T! Whoever played it got some things that I had missed and vice-versa.
I really do appreciate this site. True isolated tracks reveal so many details that are otherwise hidden in the mix. Thanks for the hard work and great job!
Very cool post and an insightful track. But that’s not Mick Taylor playing the outro lead. It’s a very good copy, but some notes are wrong, as is the phrasing in several places.
There are some too-sharp bends which Taylor would never do, so it’s not simply a different take from that on the Stick Fingers album. Further, Taylor has stated that the solo was recorded on the fly; one take.
Finally, the very beginning of the solo is missing, and the last 30 seconds or so where Mick plays the various dyads is missing.
Nice playing that sheds some light on the original, but it ain’t Mick!
Editor note: Thanks for visiting and for the comments. We welcome debates on track authenticity from our community of visitors since we don’t really know for certain where any of them come from so let the comments fly! There are times when someone has access to masters they use a different take when they assemble a video like this, but after reviewing comments from Mick Taylor himself, it sounds like this was a one-off end of tune jam that occurred when recording and they liked it and left it on. That would be a powerful indicator that if it’s not a match to what’s on the final recording, then it is unlikely to be authentic and we may remove it from here as a result. Anyone else have thoughts?
note: Mick Taylor on the back end lead….
Editor note: Great catch Rich–thanks for pointing that out–post revised!